The Jews of the Graeco-Roman Diaspora Temple.^43 If what Julian says here is indeed an observation, and an accurate
one, the fact is worth some emphasis. For as we have seen, there is almost
nothing to suggest that contemporary paganism was marked by curiosity
about Judaism; while, as we shall see in more detail below, such attention as
Christians ever paid to the realities of the Judaism occupying the same space
and time as themselves is shown mainly in two contexts: in legislation of an
increasingly repressive kind, and in records of assaults on Jewish synagogues.
Julian’sAgainst the Galileansremains by far the most explicit reflection
deriving from this period on the interrelations and contrasting histories and
values of the three religions. Only Augustine’sCity of Godmight challenge
comparison within in this respect (see text following n. below). But Julian
owed his capacity to enter as a pagan into the nature of the Judaeo-Christian
tradition to his own upbringing as a Christian. It is in that sense that, as a
pagan, he must count as the exception proving the rule. Moreover, although
he did note also other features of contemporary Judaism, such as mutual Jew-
ish charity,^44 the Judaism which most deeply attracted him was one which no
longer existed, and which, whether by divine intervention or not, he proved
unable to revive.
Fourth-Century Judaism
Various sources allege^45 that Julian’s initiative had been greeted with great
enthusiasm by the Jews of the diaspora, who rushed to participate in the re-
building of the Temple. That may indeed be so, but our greatest difficulty in
trying to map the broad lines of the interrelations of paganism, Judaism, and
Christianity in this period is precisely that there is so little testimony by Jews
which, explicitly or implicitly, looks outwards to the great conflicts and fun-
damental changes which were taking place around them. As David Rokeah
has argued for a slightly earlier period,^46 the religious debates between Chris-
tians and paganism involved Judaism; but the Jews are not known to have
participated explicitly. Although our topic is the Judaism of the diaspora, we
ought not necessarily to exclude the ‘‘rabbinic’’ literature of Palestine. For,
firstly, the question of the relations or non-relations of Palestinian Judaism
. See N. R. M. de Lange,Origen and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations in
Third-CenturyPalestine(), ff., and the review by W. Horbury inJThSt (): .
. Julian,Ep. , Loeb; Stern,Greek and Latin AuthorsII, no. .
. M. Avi-Yonah,The Jews under Roman and Byzantine Rule(), –.
. D. Rokeah,Jews, Pagans and Christians in Conflict().